New York’s new jails boss once served time in a cell block he now oversees

NEW YORK (AP) — Stanley Richards knows how bleak life can be at Rikers Island, New York City’s notorious jail complex. As a young man, he spent two years locked up there for robbery.

Now, he runs the place as the city’s new Department of Correction commissioner.

In January, Mayor Zohran Mamdani tapped Richards to become the first formerly incarcerated person to oversee the city’s jails. His office, inside a converted chapel, is across the road from his old cell block…

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